Hernandez v. New York

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Hernandez v. New York, 500 U.S. 352 (1991) , was a decision by the United States Supreme Court , which held that a prosecutor may dismiss jurors who are bilingual in Spanish and English from juries that will consider Spanish-language testimony.

Peremptory challenges are used to remove jurors thought to be undesirable for virtually any reason by either side in a court case. However, in _Batson v. Kentucky _ (1986), the Supreme Court ruled that peremptory challenges may not be used to remove jurors because of their race. In Hernandez, the Supreme Court had to decide whether the peremptory exclusion of two Hispanic jurors was tantamount to exclusion because of race—and therefore violated the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution . The case is recognized as expanding a Batson challenge to a peremptory strike based on a juror's ethnicity.

Contents

• 1 Procedural history of the case

• 2 Arguments at the Supreme Court

  • 2.1 Amicus curiae

  • 2.2 Oral argument

  • 2.3 Plurality decision

  • 2.4 Concurrence

  • 2.5 Dissent

• 3 Criticism of the decision

• 4 Aftermath of the decision

• 5 See also

• 6 Further reading

• 7 References

• 8 External links

Procedural history of the case

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hernandez_v._New_York&action=edit&section=1 "Edit section: Procedural history of the case")

Dinosio Hernandez was convicted by a jury of attempted murder on January 30, 1987, in the New York Supreme Court . He appealed his conviction, claiming that under the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Batson v. Kentucky, the prosecutor unconstitutionally used peremptory strikes against jury panel members who had Hispanic last names. On appeal, the court found that the prosecutor had only challenged the three potential jurors with Hispanic surnames. However, the appellate court found that the prosecutor had a nondiscriminatory reason for the challenge because the stricken jurors either had a relative prosecuted by the district attorney's office or spoke Spanish and may not accept the translated testimony as final.

Hernandez proceeded with his Batson claim and appealed to the New York Court of Appeals . New York's highest court of appeals agreed with the appellate court that Hernandez made a _prima facie _ case of discrimination. The court did not find that striking a juror based on their language alone was reversible error , as it was a "legitimate neutral ground" for the prosecutor to be concerned about the Spanish-speaking jurors' fidelity to a translated court record. The majority noted that the trial judge was present during the entirety of the questioning and was satisfied with the prosecutor's actions, as the stricken jurors' body language signaled doubt.

Judge Kaye authored the dissent, criticizing the majority for the diminished protections of Batson for New York and for deciding the case on federal and not state law. Rather than allow Batson's contours to be defined over decades of litigation, Kaye argued that deciding the matter on state law would allow clearer protections earlier for New York residents. On the merits, Kaye believed too much deference was provided to the trial court's decision and was concerned that while the prosecutor expressed an interest in removing Spanish-speakers because of the interpreter, there was no indication that any non-Latino jurors were asked if they spoke Spanish as well.

The Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari to determine if a Latino juror struck from jury service because of their Spanish language in a court translated proceeding violated a defendant's Batson protections.

Arguments at the Supreme Court

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hernandez_v._New_York&action=edit&section=2 "Edit section: Arguments at the Supreme Court")

Amicus curiae

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hernandez_v._New_York&action=edit&section=3 "Edit section: Amicus curiae")

The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of Hernandez. MALDEF's argument focused on the wide usage of Spanish by Hispanics and the sociolinguistic evidence that supported Hispanics as living in a world where they are constantly required to switch between Spanish and English without the ability to turn off the ability to speak either. It forecast that Hispanic jurors would become an "endangered species" if they are presumed to be biased, based on a common attribute.

Oral argument

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hernandez_v._New_York&action=edit&section=4 "Edit section: Oral argument")

At oral argument, Hernandez argued that it is a per se Batson violation to discriminate on language. Hernandez believed that every bilingual juror would express the same hesitance that the struck jurors in his case would because of their language ability. The Court was concerned with line-drawing issues of potential multiple dialects or languages for a given foreign country and whether a prosecutor could ever use a peremptory strike against a bilingual juror.

New York argued that Hernandez's position was against Supreme Court jurisprudence for three main reasons: it used the juror's answer as proof of a prosecutor's intent to discriminate, it prevented individualized assessment of jurors in favor of group stereotypes, and it would create no ability for prosecutors to excuse certain jurors.

Plurality decision

(https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hernandez_v._New_York&action=edit&section=5 "Edit section: Plurality decision")

Justice Kennedy wrote the plurality opinion. After outlining the facts of the case and the procedural history of the case, the Court moved on to the Court's jurisprudence on Batson. It reiterated Batson's three-step process: first, a defendant must make a prima facie case of racial discrimination; second, if it is made, the burden shifts to the prosecutor to make a race-neutral showing for the strike; and finally, the trial judge makes a determination if the defendant's claim stands. Even though Hernandez did not make a prima facie showing before the prosecutor presented a race-neutral reasoning, the Court found this did not impact the analysis because it rested with the trial judge's determination.

The Court side-stepped Hernandez's argument on the correlation between Spanish-speaking ability and ethnicity because of the additional factors the prosecutor articulated in his reasoning f

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